OK, apparently, the ERC does require a few discs to go through before breaking in. I let it repeat a few last night and this morning. Now the tonal irregularities I was hearing are pretty much gone and the bass although still tight has improved. The ERC is not bass heavy but it's solid and controlled. I wish I had waited to post my earlier thoughts but I guess it shows the process, or progress. Even the pace is not as rigid.

PAY ATTENTION, Roadrunner will laugh his butt off. The ERC-1 is scary good, it comes amazingly close to my reference player. I believe the reviews I thought to be "wild" were probably closer to true than those who couldn't hear the difference between the ERC and a DVD player. That's ridiculous, the huge sound stage alone would be enough to make a difference and I can't believe any DVD player would be as good as the ERC.

I borrowed the NAD 545. At the time I had the ERC in the system with the Krell 500i, so I popped the 545 in for a listen. Immediately, I knew there was no contest, the ERC had more detail and the 545's sound stage was compressed in comparison. The 545 has a more analog sound and very strong bass for a player in that price. In fact, the bass is so heavy the 545 seemed a bit out of balance. I wanted to get the closest comparison i could, so to be fair I unhooked the XLR's from the ERC and hooked it up in place of the 545 to the BJC RCA's. Much to my surprise the RCA's to me sounded better. The ERC had better tonal quality that way. So that could be due to the ERC not being truly balanced, I've yet to receive an answer on that, or Emo and Transparent aren't good together.

So I took both the boys back in to play with the CJ. My CJ was more forgiving of the 545 than the Krell, or, the Siltech cables made the difference, but it still couldn't match the ERC, by a lot. So I sat back and listened to a couple tracks on the ERC-1, some Joe Bonomasa and Chicago. I am not exaggerating when I say I would not have a problem using the ERC-1 as a main player if I didn't have the T+A. The T+A outclasses the ERC in bass response, tonal quality and some refinement, but if I was buying and testing the two, for the price difference I'm almost certain I'd take the ERC. Believe me when I say the ERC is more in the league with the high end than it is with players in it's price. The others in it's price don't stand a chance. I don't know how a player can be this good for $399.00 but if Emo keeps it up and the word gets out I'm sure the impact will shake things up.

You guys talking about buying an ERC-1 for your second system may be pretty damn surprised at which one ends up in the second system. I do hope some one else follows through to buy one so I can see what you think.

What to expect: The ERC-1has the largest sound stage of any player I've ever heard, the bass is solid and well defined but not over emphasized, excellent detail, plenty of air around instruments, and a very quiet background.

Just side notes, I'm not a big fan of slot loading, it just doesn't seem like a natural movement of your hand and you have to be more careful not to touch the surface of the disc but after doing it some you get used to it and the mechanism seems to work very well. You just have to wait a minute when turning on out of stand by, you can't just hit the button and start shoving. I like the stand by button under the slot, the face has a clean and ergonomic lay out.